June 28, 2006

I was originally going to write a blog entry about what a load of crap “secondhand smoke” is, but now that the Bush Administration’s answer to Joycelyn Elders Surgeon General has formally pronounced any and all debate on the subject to be “over,” I guess I’m not allowed to do that anymore. Thanks to commenter Anwyn for the inspiration.

UPDATE: Jacob Sullum’s take seems a bit more reasonable. Given the rag of a mag he writes for, that’s saying something.

June 24, 2006

Patterico and Armed Liberal have canceled their subscriptions to the L.A. Times. If you subscribe to the L.A. Times, the New York Times,or the Wall Street Journal,[see update] you should consider doing the same. Hell, if you subscribe to the Chicago Tribune or any other paper affiliated with these treasonous creeps, consider canceling that subscription, as well. It’s high time for the public to tell these self-righteous jerks that they do not speak for the public, even when … nay, especially when … they smarmily claim to be acting in “the public interest.”

* I used to cringe when Ann Coulter used that phrase to describe the far left, and when she joked about how Tim McVeigh’s crime would not have been so bad if she had blown up the New York Times building instead of the Alfred Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Apparently, she wasn’t as far off the mark on either suggestion as I thought; just “ahead of the news cycle.”

Professor Bainbridge nails it. If these criminals inside and outside the government are not prosecuted, we might as well just come out and admit we are a government by the New York Times, of the New York Times and for the New York Times. Pattericohasmuchmuchmuchmuchmore.

June 23, 2006

Go ahead, take the quiz. You know you want to. Then read Dafydd’s explanation of Crawford’s quiz isn’t worth the ones and zeroes its written on. Here are a few key Hitler quotes that Crawford forgot to include on his quiz (assuming, of course, that Hitler really did speak English, as Crawford seems to think he did):

Damn, these freeways are hella-lame. Let’s build an autobahn!

Uh-huh.

Not as such.

I’d like two scoops of vanilla ice-cream, please.

Hey, this is really good beer!

Scheisse, I haff sauerkraut on my Lederhose.

Please put out that cigarette. I know the U.S.-American surgeon general hasn’t made any formal pronouncements about the health risks of smoking yet, but trust me, drawing all that filthy smoke into your lungs can’t possibly be good for you.

This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future! Hey, listen up guys, this is important stuff. You, from the Frankfurter Allgemeine, pay friggin’ attention. Are you even taking notes? And that goes for the rest of you, except that one guy in the front from the Berliner Tageblatt. I’m glad you’re paying attention, at least, but I hope you don’t mind me asking WTF your boss was thinking when he sent a reporter from the Arts and Culture page to cover this speech no one else wants to report on at all. And what the hell kind of first name is “Einleitung,” anyway? Does your mama even speak German, or did she thumb through the dictionary and land on whatever sounded ‘German’ to her? Jeebus.

June 22, 2006

Apparently, the last quiz wasn’t enough to satisfy some gunnies’ desires. Rather than treat you to a whole new quiz, here’s a rematch between the same two potential “assault” weapons. Now can you tell which is which?

I agree with Patterico and Professor Bainbridge the 500 WMD found in Iraq are no big deal, except maybe for arguing with moonbats who implausibly claim Saddam had no WMD rather than nowhere near as much WMD as we thought. Then again, if those guys don’t believe the Duelfur Report, does anyone expect them to believe Rick Santorum? Alternatively, the 500 WMD may be semi-useful as a counterargument to those who argue that UN inspections were the answer, but even argument is strained. It’s not exactly fair to expect Team Blix, playing cat and mouse games with Saddam, to locate WMD in a matter of months that it would take the U.S. military a full year to find after Saddam was out of the picture. In degraded, pre-1991 bombnutshell, this story is either the tip of some as yet unannounced iceberg, or it’s much ado about nothing little.

That said, the story is news, and should rightfully be reported. More should be, as well, if it can be done without endangering national security. The Administration’s ho-hum response, and their apparent reluctance to re-visit the WMD issue, are not good reasons to keep information classified. Maybe other, more valid reasons exist. If so, keep the information classfied. If not, release it, and leave it to us, the people, to decide whether it’s a big deal or not, or whether it will or will not help or hurt any particular politician’s campaign in the fall. Professor Bainbridge plays the tired “I question the timing of this story” card:

Finally, why is a politico in the middle of the election fight of his life making this announcement instead of the Administration? It looks like more GOP politicization of intelligence.

Puh-leeze. This information has been known since early to mid-2004, so if the GOP were intent on politicizing it, they’d have dropped their bombshell then, while the Presidency was at stake rather than just the career of one junior Senator. Even if Santorum’s seat were that important to the G.O.P. – or, if, as a Bainbridge commenter argues, it was just the Santorum camp politicizing the issue for his own personal ends – it still would not make sense to politicize the issue now, a full 4 1/2 months prior to Election Day. Unless Santorum thinks the still-classified information he wants declassified has a bit more there there, demagoguing the issue now is utterly useless, any short-term political capital he gains from yesterday’s report will fizzle long before November 7. As “convenient” timing goes, this ranks down their with Jim McDermott questioning the timing of Saddam Hussein’s December 13, 2003 capture (which, presumably, was supposed to influence the outcome of the November 2, 2004).

June 21, 2006

Virginia has open primaries – you know, the kinda thing that’s unconstitutional if you live in California, but constitutional if you live in the United States. Last week, I nearly voted in my first Democrat primary in over a decade. Unlike some Republicans who voted for Miller to help George Allen, I probably would have voted for Webb to ensure that the saner of the two face off against Allen, who should win handily over either. But I was out of town at a convention until Tuesday, didn’t know where my polling place was, was too damned lazy to lift a finger to find out, and was too tired and hungry to care. So I missed my first primary in two decades. Well, it turns out I needn’t have bothered. Not only didn’t Webb need my vote, having cast one for him might have had repercussions for me. Laziness and procrastination paid off.